This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. The mentoring core provided salary support for the PI and for 5 senior mentors and core directors this reporting period. The Administrative Core also supported 3 postdoctoral fellows, 4 graduate students, one MD/PhD student, and 4 medical students during a 8-10 week summer research Fellowships, thus helping to fulfill our aim of increasing the pool of emerging investigators in hypertension research and related areas. Travel expenses were covered for COBRE investigators presenting at national meetings and conferences. The period covered by this report represents the third year of the new project period. The level of activity continued to increase as we are able to recover from the devastation caused by Katrina. In general, COBRE investigators were highly productive and substantial progress was made towards our goals. Ms. Nina R Majid has been the program coordinator since May 2007 and maintains all records relating to the COBRE. She is responsible for the preparation and dissemination of newsletters from the Center. Three newsletters were completed during this period and one more is planned for this summer. Nina is responsible for maintaining the center web-site, informing web-site visitors with updated information of the center activities, COBRE past and current projects, news, calendar of events, and all functions related to the COBRE. She arranges regular monthly COBRE junior investigator meetings and the bi-weekly multi-departmental, multi-institutional Hypertension and Renal Center of Excellence Conference on alternate Thursday afternoons. The program coordinator also helped to organize the activities during World Kidney Day which was held on March 11, 2010. In cooperation with the local NKF Chapter, individuals were screened for possible kidney diseases and were given advice about life style modifications that could help prevent the development of hypertension and kidney disease. The program coordinator is also responsible for the preparation of the progress reports and orders supplies and equipment for all projects and ensures that the expenditures for each project remain within the allocated budgets. The program coordinator is also responsible for organizing monthly meetings for the junior faculty investigators, PI, and senior mentors to discuss details of the individual projects and progress being made in preparation for submission of R01 applications. Bi-weekly seminars are also organized where speakers of local, national, and internal prominence are invited to present talks on their field of expertise.